Xabi Alonso has offered a clear indication that Chelsea are content with their current goalkeeping group, despite recent talk of a move for Porto and Portugal goalkeeper Diogo Costa.<\/p>\n
The Chelsea boss said he is satisfied with the options already available to him and pointed to the balance of experience and youth in the squad. \u201cI\u2019m very happy with Rob [S\u00e1nchez], Mike [Penders] and Teddy [Sharman-Lowe],\u201d Alonso admitted . \u201cMike is a young goalkeeper that has done a great season at Strasbourg. Rob, he has played many years in the club, in Chelsea , as well as the Premier League , he has experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo to have this security in the goal is important,\u201d Alonso finished.<\/p>\n
Those remarks appear to reinforce the idea that Chelsea may be prepared to begin the 2026\/27 season without bringing in a new established first-choice goalkeeper. Costa had been mentioned in connection with the club, with the Portugal international long regarded as one of the strongest goalkeepers outside Europe\u2019s top-five leagues. He also impressed for Portugal at the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n
Porto\u2019s position has remained firm, with the club saying they would only consider a sale if his $68.7 million (\u00a351 million) release clause is met. Even so, recent speculation has suggested Chelsea have not made an enquiry and are not planning a move at this stage.<\/p>\n
The club did explore the possibility of signing Mike Maignan last summer, but that transfer did not come together. Instead, Chelsea continued with their internal options, and that approach now seems to be holding.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez is expected to start the third consecutive season in goal when 2026\/27 begins. He had briefly lost the position to \u0110or\u0111e Petrovi\u0107 in his first campaign, but improved in 2025\/26, even if errors remain part of his profile.<\/p>\n
Behind him, Penders remains the understudy. Signed in 2024, the 21-year-old Belgium international has spent the last two seasons on loan, first at Genk and then at sister club Strasbourg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alonso says Chelsea are happy with S\u00e1nchez, Penders and Sharman-Lowe despite Diogo Costa links.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[1900,1836],"class_list":["post-18316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","tag-2026-fifa-world-cup","tag-2026-27-premier-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}